


playing catch

by gigglesandfreckles



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Basically it's crying about found family hours, Grand Master & Grand Padawan Bonding (Star Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, So hop on board lets sink together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigglesandfreckles/pseuds/gigglesandfreckles
Summary: “I could stay. Take care of you.”He shook his head with a sad smile. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me, little one. I’m quite capa–”“Master,” she interrupted, fixing him with an unimpressed glare. “That wasn’t true when you said it five years ago either.”He looked away. “I can’t...I can’t ask you to stay. To give up the rest of your life to live on Tatooine.”“You’re not asking. I’m telling. And rest of our life? Obi-Wan, we can leave! I have a ship!”“I can’t leave, Ahsoka.”[or Ahsoka finds an old friend on Tatooine and has lots of questions. they cry a lot. obi-wan tells some white lies. they get the hugs they need.]
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 27
Kudos: 193





	playing catch

**Author's Note:**

> I know i've literally already written a 'tatooine reunuion'-esque fic for these two before, but the heart wants it wants, okay? so here we are again. see y'all back here again with the same idea, different technique in a couple months? cool? cool.

It was another dream. _Had_ to be. Because any other alternative, any _reality_ in which this was real–

Obi-Wan simply wasn’t willing to let himself go to that headspace.

She just stood there. As she had so many times in so many of his dreams and hallucinations before, except this time, she was tall and older and _changed_. No longer immortalised in the impractical Jedi uniform he had grown so accustomed to chastising her for or the Mandalorian blues he knew she had died in. 

He put no limits on the power of his imagination to construct the cruelest apparitions these days, but this– _this_. He wasn’t aware he had the ability to envision her in this way. So real and so very much like he would imagine her to be had she survived.

“Obi-Wan?” she whispered.

He shut his eyes against it. The pull to open his arms, invite her in, never let her leave.

“It’s _you,_ ” the ghost said and then–

“How did you do that?” Obi-Wan demanded, stepping back and instinctively reaching for his waist. As if a lightsaber could hold any power against a mirage. As if he could ever raise a lightsaber against her _anyway_.

The tentative hand fell from his shoulder. “What?”

“I... _feel_ you. You–”

“Obi-Wan. It’s me...Ahsoka.”

Her eyes implored him to trust her and _oh_ how he wanted to. But he’d been here before.

“No. You’re a dream.”

The corners at her mouth twitched. “I know the feeling.” She took a slow step toward him again and replaced the hand on his shoulder, carefully. He stared at it, still wondering how it was that he could _feel_ it. The heaviness, the _life_. “I’m really here, Master.”

And something about her voice. Something about the warmth and years of longing she was able to infuse in that last word.

“Ahsoka?” he croaked.

And how silly of him for all these years to imagine it would ever be _him_ doing the catching should they happen to meet again on this side of the Force. He fell into her with the weight of five years of _not knowing_. Five years of not knowing yet choosing to believe every day that she was dead because it was better than all the graphic alternatives he could think of.

Her arms wrapped around his neck in a death-grip. Obi-Wan had always taken great care to make sure the doors to his quarters were firmly locked before he let himself unravel in the other lifetime he’d known Ahsoka, but he found, in this lifetime, he didn’t much care if she watched him weep. Or held him while he did so.

She pulled away first and Obi-Wan didn’t need to feel the sudden rigidness in her body to know what was coming next. He hadn’t felt a familiar force signature in years, but this wasn’t one he would ever forget and he had always known when this not-so-little girl in front of him was going to ask a question like–

“Where is he?” 

“Ahsoka.”

She shoved past him. “Where is he, Obi-Wan?”

If it had been any other circumstance, he would have commented on her lack of decorum in absolutely _busting_ into Obi-Wan’s home. 

Well–not _home_. That was somewhere else entirely. 

House.

“Ahsoka,” he sighed, following her in and closing the door behind him. She was ambling around his small living space, looking about the room like he was going to pop out of one of Obi-Wan’s measly pots or pans at any moment.

She opened the door to Obi-Wan’s room. Surveyed the interior. Then, slammed it shut and turned over her shoulder.

“Where is he?”

Obi-Wan looked at her, hoping, _willing her_ to understand with her eyes what he couldn’t bring himself to say with his mouth.

But Ahsoka had always been stubborn.

“He’s not here.”

“Yes, he is.”

“He’s n–”

“Obi-Wan,” she snapped. “I’m not a Padawan anymore. Don’t play _games_ with me.”

She hadn’t been a Padawan for quite some time, Obi-Wan realised. His heart twisted as his imagination proved it’s prowess by creating phantom silka beads dangling from her montrals. He blinked and they were gone.

He’d spent too many years wondering where those beads were now. Obi-Wan had seen Anakin’s quarters after Ahsoka had left the Order; he knew he kept them in the small box next to his bed. So what happened after–everything?

Did they still sit on the bedside table in Anakin’s old quarters, an artifact of a religion burned to the ground? Or worse, had they somehow found their way into the hands of Vader, a souvenir of the life he had once lived?

“Where is he, Obi-Wan?” Her voice was soft now. On the brink of breaking.

“I don’t know.”

That much was true, at least.

…

“It feels trivial to ask but–”

“How did I find you?” she asked over her tea, her nose scrunching at the bitter taste as it always had when she thought he wasn’t looking. 

He nodded.

“I was...in the neighbourhood.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Tatooine?”

“I was, er–”

“ _Ahsoka._ ”

“Doing research!” she cried defensively. 

“What research could you _possibly_ have business with on Tatooine?”

“You know,” she shrugged as casually as she could manage, “just stuff.”

“Your lying skills have only deteriorated over time, young one.”

“So has your hair line, old one.”

He choked on his tea.

…

“I’ve got a ship.”

Obi-Wan looked up in surprise, wondering if he heard the correct implications.

“It’s not very big,” she said quickly. “And it needs repairs like a gundark needs meat. But...it flies.” 

She shifted in the rickety chair he’d salvaged from the scrap yard during his first year. He never had any visitors, but he wasn’t _barbaric_. He needed more than one chair at his dinner table.

“There’s a passenger seat,” she said in a small voice.

“Oh.”

…

“You were looking for him, weren’t you? That’s why you’re here.”

Ahsoka pushed her cup of tea toward the center of the table and rested her head in her arms. “Yeah.”

He reached across the table and clasped her hand with his.

…

“–but Master Plo _never_ told you!”

Obi-Wan snorted _again_ . “Well, I am a _Jedi_ , Ahsoka. I sensed _something_ was amuck.”

“I just…” She burst into another fit of giggles. “I can’t believe...he never _said anything!_ ”

Obi-Wan stood to refill their glasses of water, his throat raw and ragged from the laughter he’d shared over the last hour. He wasn’t used to that.

“Plo was there when I accidentally shrunk all my clothes as a Padawan,” Obi-Wan said over the running water. “Qui-Gon had just taken me on and the first thing we did as Master and Padawan was go get me new clothes because he said mine were _pathetically impractical_.”

He returned to the table and set a glass down in front of Ahsoka.

“I shrunk all of them the _first time_ washing them. Absolutely went mad trying to reverse it.” He chuckled in recollection. “I was scrambling about, stretching my tunics out on any surface available and in walks Master Plo. Now,” Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka seriously, “as a youngling, I was _terrified_ of him…”

“Everyone always said they were scared of him!” Ahsoka cried with a scoff.

“His face was _scary,_ Ahsoka.”

“His face was _kind_.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “ _Anyway_ , this Master I’ve spent my entire life intimidated by walks in and sees me trying to stretch my robe over a statue of T’ra Saa.”

Ahsoka dissolved into giggles. 

“At first, he didn’t say anything. Just watched me panic. Then, he held out his hand and said, ‘Well, Padawan Kenobi, two are better than one. Hand me a robe.’ He was the one who finally suggested I throw my clothes away and go ask for new ones. We found an indiscreet bin to dump them and he even did all the negotiating with Master Qar to get me new ones, no questions asked.” He smiled fully. “Never told Qui-Gon.”

“Master Plo was the _best_.” Then, her grin faded.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She chewed on her lip. “I...I don’t like using past tense when we...talk about Master Plo.”

“He could be out there.”

It was almost surely impossible, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that aloud. Not to her.

“No,” she said softly. “He’s not.”

Obi-Wan leaned forward. “How do you know?”

She looked up with eyes so shiny he could see his full reflection in them. “Because I felt him die.”

…

“You know, don’t you.”

“Know what?”

“Obi-Wan.”

“Yes.” A shaky breath. “I know.”

...

“Tell me how it happened.”

“No.”

...

He didn't want to lie to her. He so _desperately_ didn't want to lie to her.

But he himself hadn't processed the events on Mustafar. The transformation that he watched occur. Or maybe he'd watched it for years and hadn't known.

Or even more, maybe he _had_ known.

As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, Anakin Skywalker was _dead_.

...

“You were there, weren’t you? When he...when Anakin–”

Obi-Wan shut his eyes. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

_Sorry I couldn't save him from himself._

...

“I wish I could have seen him one more time.”

 _No, you don’t_.

…

Their backs ached from sitting in the same chairs for so many hours.

“I could stay. Take care of you.”

He shook his head with a sad smile. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me, little one. I’m quite capa–”

“Master,” she interrupted, fixing him with an unimpressed glare. “That wasn’t true when you said it five years ago either.”

He looked away. “I can’t...I can’t ask you to stay. To give up the rest of your life to live on _Tatooine_.”

“You’re not asking. I’m _telling_ . And rest of our life? Obi-Wan, we can _leave!_ I have a ship!”

“I can’t leave, Ahsoka.”

“What? Why?” Suddenly, her eyes widened with concern. Fear. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Is the Empire–”

“No, no,” he waved her off, pushing away from the table. He walked toward the singular window. More of a dicut in his wall. “I’m not hurt and I’m not in any sort of trouble. No more than usual, anyhow,” he added as an afterthought.

“Then, what’s–”

“I just can’t leave,” he said quickly. Ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Please don’t...don’t ask me to.”

He could feel her watching him and he knew that if he turned around, he’d see the familiar expression. The tiny indention above her nose where her face markings knit together. The questioning twinkle in her eye as she tried to figure him out. So he kept looking out the window at the dustbowl he couldn’t resign her to.

“Okay,” she said finally. “ _Okay_. Then, I’ll stay.”

“ _No_ ,” he said sharply, turning around. “You _can’t_.”

She threw her hands up in frustration. “Why _not?_ ”

“ _B_ _ecause_ –”

“You don’t want me to stay,” she said quietly, as though she had discovered a monumental truth.

“What?”

“You don’t...you want me to leave you alone. You... _like_ being by yourself out here.”

“No, Ahsoka–”

“I’m sorry I came,” she said, her eyes darting around the room as she searched for the robe and lightsabers she’d tossed. “I heard them say Kenobi in town and I thought–I just didn’t think you were...alive and so…” She grabbed her robe, shrugging off his hand as he tried ot stop her retreat. “But I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry I came out here and disrupted your silent, lonely life where you...you get to ignore the problems of the galaxy and the Sith and the fact that...that everyone else _is gone_ and...I _only have you,_ Master, and–”

This time, he did the catching.

“Ahsoka,” he whispered as she fell into him, her fight dissolving immediately. “You are one of the greatest gifts the Force has ever given me.” He squeezed her tighter. “There is nothing– _n_ _othing_ –I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you by my side.”

“So _why_ –” she tried to ask before choking on her own tears.

He took a breath and moved his mouth as close to her ear as possible. This felt like something even the walls couldn’t hear.

“Anakin had a son.” And then, because he was feeling brave and because he was tired of secrets. "Would you like to see him?"

**Author's Note:**

> maybe she stays with him, maybe she doesn’t...idk you decide it’s a choose-your-own-adventure sort of ending!!! huzzah!!
> 
> Thank you for reading, kudosing, commenting, or clicking!!!! You make my heart sing.
> 
> Follow along with my Star Wars hyperfixation on my [ tumblr ](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/giggles-and-freckles)!


End file.
